


Shuffle, Cut the Deck, Draw Four

by Hollowed Ground (Hollowed_Ground)



Category: Majora's Mask - Fandom, Ocarina of Time - Fandom, Phantom Hourglass - Fandom, Spirit Tracks - Fandom, The Wind Waker
Genre: Canon-Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fair Folk fairies, Gen, Mindscrew, Reincarnation, Time Travel, fairies of questionable morality, mind-rape, way too many timelines
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:21:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26851372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hollowed_Ground/pseuds/Hollowed%20Ground
Summary: The Links of three different ages wake up in (usually) equivalent points of each other's quests.  They have to try to figure out how to adapt to their new quests.  And, just when they think they have, it happens again, to another time.  The natural result?: a billion (yes, that's hyperbole) new timelines.The order of events here is not the same as the order of events in "Change Your Mind", its mindscrewier counterpart.updates sporadic: I don't have the whole thing written yet--sorry!
Relationships: Link & Navi, Link/Tetra, Link/Zelda, Link/female Sheik
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	1. OoT/WW 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All he did was draw the stupid Master Sword! He didn't expect to go back in time!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's about as much mind-rape in this fic as there is mindscrew in the other one. It's a tradeoff, I guess.

At some point, he'd sunk onto his hands and knees, and everything was grey. Those were his first analyses of the situation. Then, he realised that not everything was grey, just the platform he was standing on, and ahead of him was a familiar ocean blue with waves of white.

After that, his ears checked in with him to tell him that someone had been screaming in them for the past few minutes, and could he make that stop?

He decided to see what the noise was all about. He glanced over in its direction to see a fluttering ball of blue light with wings. Beneath the light was a girl with greenish-tinged blonde hair, very like his own. She had pointy features and tended to hover in the air standing with her back bent slightly. At the moment, however, she was bent forwards, hands on her hips, and shouting at him.

"Link, wake _up_! Something really weird is going on, here!"

No kidding, Link thought. Damned if he had any idea what was going on. The last thing he remembered was drawing the Master Sword, and then he was here. He told her this, and she didn't seem at all confused or surprised.

"I know. I hadn't expected that to happen, either. Where do you suppose we are?"

She seemed to know who he was, but he had no idea who _she_ was. That put him at a disadvantage, and made him wary. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. Well, she didn't seem to be an enemy, at least. Fairies had helped him before.

He looked at the shimmery blue before him. "Is this water, do you think?"

"No," she said, sounding a bit cross. "Look around you, Link. I don't think we're even in the physical world anymore."

Link did as he was told, resisting a childish urge to glower at his boat (the one who usually bossed him around), who wasn't even here at the moment. The resentment faded away as he saw that they seemed to be suspended in the middle of the air. Blackness rose above them, and surrounded the outer reaches of the greater platform they stood on now. What he had taken for the ocean was in fact light shining off a floor so full of magic energy that it crackled and hummed. It was beautiful, but made him feel very small.

"Are you alright, Link?" the fairy asked. She sounded concerned, perhaps thinking that she'd pushed him too far, too soon. He wondered how she knew his name.

He pushed himself to his feet, and froze. He hadn't been wearing _that_ before.

This was a highly inane thought to be having whilst he was supposed to be panicking and trying to find a way out, but it was true. He was wearing some sort of gloves…?

 _"_ What am I _wearing_?" he muttered quietly, thinking that the fairy would probably be used to his clothes and would go back to freaking out if she realised that he wasn't. The Hero's clothes had been one thing. This getup, while similar, was somehow heavier and hotter and more constricting. Also, it had a lot more white in it. Link felt he suddenly stuck out like a sore thumb. He hadn't felt that way wearing the Hero's clothes, for some reason.

"Link? Are you listening to me?"

He thought it might be a good idea to give her most of his focus. If he were paying attention to her words, then he wouldn't have to figure out what to do or what to say or where he was or what the hells was going on here—

"You stay with me," she ordered. "We need to get out of here."

"Perhaps I can help you with that," said a man suddenly standing on one of the grey and colour platforms ringing Link's. It was an old man with an impressive moustache and clothes that had probably never been in fashion that made him look as if he had nothing else to his name.

His name was Rauru. He was the Sage of Light. And, apparently, Link had been chosen as the Hero of Time!

Wait, what?

***

"So, we have to go to…Kakariko Village, to get this thing that Sheik thinks we need," he summarised for the fairy an hour later. He'd listened politely to everything that Rauru had said. The King of Red Lions had him well-trained in listening to speeches and explanations and distilling the relevant information from them. He was an expert by now.

He also suddenly realised he'd developed an unfortunate tendency to obey those orders without thinking through the consequences. Trusting the King of Red Lions might not be the best idea. He clearly had an agenda of his own, and—

"But, she didn't tell us where to find it, what it looks like, or even what it's called."

Somehow, he'd got through the past hour without making any huge mistakes that revealed that he wasn't the Link everyone thought he was. The adrenaline of the unknown stakes of being unmasked kept him on his toes. It was probably just the shock, but Rauru, Navi, and Sheik had all expected him to be shocked, so none of them had been disturbed by it. He was just in shock for different reasons than they thought.

 _Hero of Time_. Right. Time travel and bodyswapping! Why not? That was not at all what he'd expected to happen when he'd drawn the Master Sword. The King of Red Lions should have _warned_ him.

"We will figure it out when we arrive," the fairy said, in a cool, professional sort of way. It was indifferent, neither cruel nor kind. Link wished that his grandma was there, or Aryll, or anyone else inclined towards reassurance and warmth. He needed those right now. "We have faced such setbacks before."

Link had, as well. Finding Nayru's Pearl had been one such. but it was somewhat jarring to find that he was now fully grown, and the Hero of Time's ten-year-old self had been having adventures of the sort of spine-chilling scope that Link had only recently encountered after he'd turned fifteen. It proved to him that the Hero of Time was what the legends said him to be: larger than life, ten feet tall, great beyond comprehension, immeasurable. He would never match up. Even as a child, the Hero of Time was far ahead of Link.

His imposture was doomed. Whoever had shunted him backwards had really given him a raw deal. He couldn't hope to accomplish what the Hero of Time had. He was just a kid who'd lost his sister and gone on a quest to save her, and then been dragged into greater matters.

"What's wrong, Link?" asked the fairy, trying to inject some compassion into her voice. It was such an obvious effort undertaken for the Link she thought he was that he grimaced.

That was another thing. Link had expected for the Hero of Time to wear green (although not quite this outfit). He had not expected for the Hero of Time to be named Link, even as he was, or the similarities in their appearances, ignoring the outfit.

"Nothing. Only—it's quite the task ahead of us, isn't it?"

She hemmed, and hawed, and nodded. But there was a glint of suspicion in her eyes, as well.

He had to allay her suspicions. This was difficult to do when he didn't even know where Kakariko Village was. But, he figured he had some sort of map, somewhere. He knew how to access that otherspace where items went when he wasn't holding them. He snapped his fingers for the bow, and it didn't appear. He snapped his fingers for the grappling hook, and it didn't, either. Okay. None of his items had made the journey with him. He could deal.

The fairy was looking at him curiously. He smiled at her, aside. He wished that there was some way to ask her what her name was without being completely suspicious. It felt dehumanising. You called your pet crab "the crab" for the first three days, and then you named it.

He couldn't just name her. She must already have one. Mustn't she? How did fairy culture work?

But aloud, all he said was, "I was just thinking that it would be nice if I could summon items I didn't already own into my hands. It's worth trying every so often, even if it doesn't work. I was going to call a map, anyway."

"You have a map," she said, answering the question he hadn't dared to ask, with a perplexed frown.

"I meant, if I was going to summon a map, I might as well see if I could call something useful. Wouldn't it be nice if I could just call whatever item Sheik was talking about instead of going to get it?"

The fairy rolled her eyes. "Don't be so lazy. It can't be that hard."

She was wrong, of course. Racing Dampé the gravekeeper would never be the easiest thing Link had ever done. But neither of them knew that for the moment.

Link snapped his fingers a third time, and caught the map as it appeared.

It was labeled _Hyrule_ along the top, of course, and had far too little water. There was a river, flowing from "Zora's Fountain" (who or what was 'zora"?) to Lake Hylia (whoever or whatever that was; it was probably just someone playing around with the name "Hyrule"). There was a forest labeled "Kokiri Forest" to the west, Lake Hylia to the south, a mysterious blank expanse to the east, and a mountain range to the north. "Death Mountain"? He suspected that either the real Hero of Time had gone before them, it would be up to the current Link to navigate his way through a dungeon there, or both.

"Where do you think we should go next?" he asked. "I mean, after we've cleared out the Forest Temple as Sheik said."

The fairy looked thoughtful. "I suppose we go back to the Temple of Time and ask Sheik. If she (You're sure she's a girl? Really?) doesn't care one way or another, I'd say head to the Water Temple, just in case you have to deal with Ruto. Best to get that over with. Then again...once she sees you, she won't very well leave you alone. Maybe it's better to leave her as little time for that as possible, and go through the Water Temple last."

The fairy was now thinking about what to do next on their quest, and what to do about this "Ruto" character (Link shuddered at the mention of her name for reasons he couldn't name), and was thus too distracted to notice if Link stared a bit longer at the map than he should have and had to change his course to head for Kakariko. He'd figure out what a "ranch" was, later. He decided that he'd go there next.

He was not to know that the "real" Hero of Time would not have gone off on a sidequest before he checked up on his hometown. Or rather, he would have suspected that, but he didn't know that Kokiri Forest was the Hero of Time's hometown.

It was what gave him away.

***

It was a lot quicker getting to Kokiri Forest riding Epona. but, the fairy had had to "remind" him of her song. Still, he was somehow or other a good enough horseman to beat Ingo twice in a race. And stay in the saddle when she jumped the fence.

He wished he'd known that the Hero of Time had already been to the ranch. He might not have come if he had. The fairy was far more suspicious of him, now.

***

And then, they entered the Kokiri Forest.

Navi was more than a bit disconcerted at his lack of reaction. He stared around the forest as if encountering it for the first time. He did not seem perturbed not to be recognised by his old friends. He did not acknowledge the monsters that had invaded this sacred place as abnormal. She did hear him mention something about "boko babas", and when she corrected him, he started and said "right, right. Deku babas, I meant."

Suspicious. But, she still lent him her aid for the moment, and pressed her lips together to keep silent. There would be time for a confrontation after.

The breaking point was when he didn't know "Saria's Song" nor Mido, when confronted by him on the way to the Sacred Forest Meadow. She had to hum it, gently, through into his mind. She guided him through three passages (about halfway to the maze, and out of Mido's sight or hearing), and then stopped.

He was hopeless without her guidance. She could see then and there that without it he'd end up wandering back to the entrance. If he were lucky.

"We need to talk," she said, staring him down, arms akimbo, knuckles pressed into her sides.

He looked decidedly alarmed.

"What about?" he asked, as if unconcerned.

She stabbed a finger at him, and then shook it, as if scolding a dog. "I think you know."

It was almost as if he'd become someone completely different. The Link she knew and had been working with would have reminded her, in no uncertain terms, that the clock was ticking, and they had to press on to rescue Saria. There was no time for any of Navi's little tests! Or, he might've laughed it off.

This one seemed wary.

However, she'd been traveling with him for the past week, by now, and, while he'd never addressed her by name, or indeed ever started any sort of conversation with her (unless he sensed that he couldn't avoid it), he was, other than that and his mysterious gift for riding horses, much as she remembered him. Perhaps softer.

There were times when she saw the familiar urge to challenge her orders flare, and she therefore saw him set it aside, nod, raise his head--and either do what he would've anyway, or heed her advice.

The plans he made were the same. What was missing was the interaction.

She missed the way he used to turn to her for advice. Why was he treating her like a stranger? Surely now, with his life suddenly upended (he was too comfortable being seventeen) he should have turned to Navi for counsel.

But he didn't. It was as if he didn't trust her. And that made her not trust (suspect) him. They'd been through some pretty intense stuff together, and now it was as if the bond that had been forming had just shattered and blown away in the wind. She needed to know why.

If she hadn't recognised the mannerisms, the paths his thoughts took, all the little things, she might have done something earlier.

Even still, there was an irrational part of her that thought that...well, maybe he'd been replaced or something in the Sacred Realm. He'd been acting differently since then...and kokiris didn't grow up.

"Why're you acting so weird?" she demanded, hands on her hips.

But she knew what it meant when he blinked twice and stared at her, and then turned to look anywhere else. What was he hiding? He was trying to run away from her. Well, she wouldn't let him.

"'Weird'?" he repeated, chewing on his lip thoughtfully.

She didn't recognise that mannerism.

"I have just had a bit of a shock," he said. "And now--"

"Do you remember Saria?" Navi cut in. "Or Malon? She didn't recognise you, but you knew her, didn't you? And me? You remember me, right?"

He started, and took a step back. Something she'd said had struck a chord. She'd hit on something.

He didn't know who she was. He didn't know who Malon was. He didn't even know who Saria was, and they'd been friends since long before Navi had come into Link's life.

"Of course I remember--" he began, wide-eyed. He was scared. Of her. Or of this, the confrontation he'd been trying to avoid.

"Then, what's my name?"

Silence.

"You don't know, do you? You don't know who I am, or where I come from, or where you come from, or how we met--"

She kept her voice matter-of-fact, somehow.

"I do!" he shouted, and the softness was all gone. Outwardly, he was the Link she remembered. When he was like this, he was alarming. Energy seemed to pour off him, and his eyes were cold as ice. Even when he'd been only ten years old (in appearance, but he might have been any age; kokiris didn't grow up), it had unnerved people. It had seemed to her to be one of only two ways he knew of to interact with people. The other was a sort of amused wryness.

He was almost never far away from such an explosion. He was like one of those ticking switches. When the timer went out--watch out!

To see it now was almost reassuring. He'd been too _calm_ , the past week.

"You don't," she said, her voice softer than usual. If he had known her, he would have known that it was because she was sad, and that when she was sad, it was because she was about to do something she didn't want to--something she knew he'd disapprove of. The Link she knew would have protested--

_Stop that._

"You don't know anything. Or, you don't _remember_ anything. Either way, you're different. Something happened in the Sacred Realm. You drew the Master Sword, and the next thing I knew, we were there. Only...you weren't Link. You _aren't_ Link."

Link had once or twice put her in a bottle, after they'd been to Lon Lon Ranch, and before she'd started to understand him and think of him as a person, before their bond had begun to form. He had a sort of efficient indifference to him--pragmatism. He went with what worked, and taught by example. She'd treated him as if he were unthinking and soulless, with no mind or needs, and he'd turned it around on her. Made her understand.

It did not seem to occur to this Link to do anything of the sort. He could have cut out her voice quite easily if he'd put her in a bottle. There was a spell that muted the bond they shared. _Her_ Link had been cold enough to leave one empty, as a warning.

This one looked at her, wide-eyed, as if she were a threat far beyond his reach. She saw himself rallying for a counter, and then his mood did one of those abrupt flips. He laughed.

"You're very smart for a little ball of light. You must be very close to him. But, you're wrong. I _am_ Link...just not _your_ Link. See, but that's not something I could just come out and say."

 _Whyever not? We're supposed to be a team! The Great Deku Tree said so!_ Navi found herself thinking. That made her angry. She shouldn't go confusing this impostor with the real thing. It was like betraying the Link who was her first friend, the first person other than the Great Deku Tree she'd ever begun to care about.

"Oh--you! How can you take this so _lightly_? Let's see you take _this_ lightly!" she cried, and, with a supreme effort of will belied by her size and neutral expression, she broke down the door between their minds, and forced her way in.


	2. OoT/WW 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Navi mind-rapes Link, breaking down the boundary that ordinarily keeps Links from remembering their past lives. Oops.

She spent almost no time at all in the huge room she emerged into. She just sort of looked down at the staircase cutting through the floor, with about three feet of clearance between step and tile. The average human could make it. So could she.

A voice stopped her. It was higher-pitched than she was used to (at least since the Sacred Realm). She swung her whole body around to face the figure. Stared.

It was a boy with bright blond hair held back with a green stocking cap (with an ugly, almost yellow, green brim), and, indeed a less-offensive grassy green everywhere that the post-Sacred Realm Link wore white. He wore a stupid belt with some sort of intricate knot on it. Everything about him seemed rather stupid to her just then, including the question as to where they were.

"We're in your soul, of course, idiot!" she snapped at him. He raised an eyebrow, and that infuriating, slow smile that she was too used to spread over his face. It belonged to _her_ Link. It was his _I don't believe this_ wry amusement. As if she were _funny_.

 _Laugh at **this**_ , she fumed, and zipped over to the stairs. He followed her, in evident curiosity. She knew that it was the Link she'd been traveling with, but she was a bit startled by how much he looked like _her_ Link. They did have similar faces, and those _eyes_ —

She was too angry for misgivings. She zipped down the stairs into darkness, and he followed.

***

It was dark, here, and there was a hideous constant sound of dripping. She couldn't see where she was, to know whether to head up or down, whether there might be a bend coming up. Then, the Link of the last week appeared. Here beneath the stairs, he was a spirit—a sort of translucent human figure swathed in blue light. She could see the area around him, but not the space between them. She was tempted, almost, to call out for help. She shook that sentiment off.

He was an impostor! She would not ask the assistance of some _fraud_!

He could always see where to put his feet, always knew where there was a turn. There were a few, at irregular intervals. He climbed down, and Navi stayed out of the area he lit up, stubbornly refusing to benefit from his light, even as she kept her gaze fixed on him. She couldn't see where she was going. She might as well watch him.

That was what she told herself, but something drew her to watch him. There was, buried somewhere deep beneath her humiliation and anger and suspicion and fear, a deep, latent _concern_ for his well-being. It was why she noted that his feet made contact with all those steps, and the handrails, where they appeared. He was smart enough to know that he lit up only the area around him, and that running headfirst down these steps was dangerous. It was a relief, and it shouldn't have been.

She barely heard it as the dripping was replaced with a sort of soft pattering, and then, as they continued down, the roaring rush of a waterfall.

After that, a sound she didn't recognise, a sort of shhhh—WHAAH, was all that she could think to put it.

"It's the ocean," he said, behind her. "I wish I knew I could hear it again if I just climbed a hundred steps down into my own soul."

There was still that infuriating wry amusement! It made Navi angry all over again. She did not think he was even talking to her, but wasn't _sure_.

"You!" she began, but then she stumbled out into a sort of neutral dimness, which seemed bright as a torch after that utter dark. It was just as well she'd been watching Link, or it would have taken forever for her eyes to adjust. As it was, she was quite suddenly in a round room with beautiful stained-glass windows all around the sides.

And there was Link—the same one from upstairs, reaching his hands around the blue hilt of a sword.

She forced her way forward, and watched him backtrack—up two flights of steps, past a statue holding a sword with the point aimed to the heavens, and then down to a puzzle. It didn't seem a puzzle at first,but then, before her eyes, as time unwound, Link seemed to unsolve it.

"This is Hyrule Castle!" said Link, behind her and to her left. He craned his neck as he looked around. His face was slack, except for awe-widened eyes. "But, how?"

"This is your _soul_ , idiot!" Navi snapped at him. "It has all your memories, all your skills, all your secrets."

She gave him a very sharp grin, and he took a step back. Time seemed to move forward, slightly, but Navi pressed forward, and it started rewinding again.

"All my _memories_? All my—you _can't_!" he exclaimed, mouth open and a look of crushing betrayal on his face. She had not expected that.

Well, at least he finally understood! And, he was lucky. This memory seemed fairly neutral, but everyone had painful memories, and the further back you went into their past, the fewer events there were that the mind would naturally be able to call upon. She was looking forward to that. But—she thought to herself—it served him right, pretending to be Link! She had to do this, for the safety of Hyrule!

Wait. He'd said this was _Hyrule Castle_! Unfair. She and _her_ Link had never been allowed in. Was this what it looked like inside?

But…where were all the people? Those were darknuts and moblins roaming the halls. And…and everything was _grey_. That couldn't be right.

"What happened? Everything's all grey!" she snapped at Link, who returned a look of fake confusion. She hated those. "You know what I mean!"

"I don't see I should tell you _anything_ ," he said, with a familiar coldness that her Link had only very rarely directed at her.

"Call it repayment for you pretending to be my charge," she said, leaning towards him, hands on her hips. She gave him her best glare.

"Your…charge?" he echoed. There was a familiar look of _how-do-I-solve-this-puzzle_? Hand under his chin, gaze straight ahead and slightly down. It swift returned to that alarming fury.

She responded by yanking, hard, on a swathe of the stuff that lay before her, and pulling herself through.

***

Somehow, he joined her in the next scene, still behind and to the left. He stared at the water beneath his feet, how they didn't sink beneath, or into, the water, with childish fascination. Navi was too busy listening in on the private conversation between…Jabu-Jabu and a boat?! Just what madhouse had this Link come from?

She had to bend all her focus towards understanding the talking boat. It was as if he spoke a language that didn't _exist_! But, she heard it in Hylian, if she strained and reached out towards that icy-cold bond to the Link currently staring at his feet.

"No connection to the legendary one" (the Hero of Time!). "Nayru's Pearl". A test?

She must have skipped backwards over the test! Then again, maybe this Link had not yet encountered it. It would be such a _hassle_ to move backwards, and if she did, Link might realise he could leave, and that he could make _her_ leave, if he dragged her. He'd have to catch her, first.

She reached in front of her when the conversation ended, and dragged just a pinch of time and memory between her fingers.

***

Two old men were telling Link that they couldn't do anything to help his "Grandma", whatever that was, and scolding him for not telling them that "Aryll" had been kidnapped, whoever that was.

But a fairy might be able to. They'd been seen on the summit! long ago, but not since these two old men had been kids.

And Link just sort of took all this in, accepted it with calm instead of the anger she was used to, and headed up a beaten path around the mountain. The Link who had come with her had his eyes narrowed, and had all the towering fury that was absent in his past self. She did not dare to ask for details.

She knew that she'd have to stay out of his way for the next several weeks when she saw him put that fairy in the bottle before going back down the mountain.

That old woman seemed really…off, but the fairy in the bottle cured her easily, disappearing with a wink to Link, and then this "Grandma" was right as rain, again. Something about making him and Aryll worry about her? Were they family, of some sort?

"Are you done spying on my family, yet?" he asked through gritted teeth. He actually dared to take a swipe at her (knowing she couldn't know the answer), but she grabbed a pinch of time again, and yanked.

***

The talking boat was giving out orders. Navi dedicated herself to straining to understand him. It was hard.

Link just sort of listened to him, as if his words came down form the goddesses themselves, and then nodded, setting off up the embankment (the shore).

Now, here they were, with him climbing up vines in the middle of the night, amidst rain that hit like arrows instead of water. Link's hair was plastered to his face, and his clothes were soaked. He looked wretched, but determined, and, somewhere just beneath that, she could see the barest spark of fury-driven purpose.

He crawled through a hole in the chimney onto a platform overlooking a room where a bunch of rough types seemed to be divvying up the spoils they'd stolen from this merchant, here.

Nasty. It took her too long to figure out that the leader was the girl with hair the same colour as this Link's, but straight and neat, from what Navi could tell. The updo made it hard. So did her lack of understanding of human fashions. There was no way that garish red scarf was in style, was there? It was a hideous colour! She doubted the greatest thief could sneak around wearing it. And that seemed to be what this lot were. Thieves, like Ganondorf.

The girl who was their leader looked up into the rafters where Link was peering over the side. He retreated, but, too late! She saw him!

She _winked_. And then agreed not to sail for "Outset" until the morning. Why was she helping him, unless…?

Navi shot Link a surreptitious, furtive glance of suspicion, which he nonetheless caught.

"Yeah, they're pirates, but Tetra swore she'd help rescue my sister." He gave Navi a familiar glare, but did not seem quite to be able to convince himself to risk reaching for her again. He knew that she'd just send them further back in time. He wasn't sure why he told her what he did, only that he didn't want her suspicious of him. He did not want her to label him as "evil", or "a threat".

She pulled on the past, anyway, before he could make up his mind what to do.

***

Neither of them wound up when they were expecting. It was a huge cavern, with poisonous purple goo rising up through the floor, a watery substance charged, at the moment, with electricity.

Blood immediately began to drip from a cut running from the back of present-Link's hand to his wrist. No, not a cut. A scratch, but a deeper one than she was used to. His green clothes were torn, and his hands were shaking. He winced, and when he walked, he limped.

"W-what?" As if his stutter wasn't enough of a tell, his face was draining of all colour, and he was shaking all over. Shock, maybe?

Navi dismissed it, turning towards the giant flower hanging from the ceiling. She knew better than to ask him what it was.

It hung from the ceiling by too many tendrils (covered in spikes, explained where that scrape came from) for her to bother to count. She located the Link of the memory by following the trajectory of a yellow boomerang as it returned to his hand.

"H-hurts," the Link who'd followed her said, quite unnecessarily. He sat down abruptly. Navi tried to continue to ignore him.

"Of course it does! You got beat up pretty bad, here, didn't you?"

He stared at her, seeming horrified by her casual apathy. "You _knew_ this would happen?"

She could almost hear the switch starting to count down. "Didn't know you'd ever been in a fight, before you came here. But I thought it _might_."

There were only three people she'd ever met hadn't quailed at the look he gave her. She was one. Zelda was a second. That Impa-bodyguard was the third. The other two were explained by virtue of Link's anger _not being directed at them_.

 _A different Link_ , she reminded herself.

She watched, arms crossed, as Link cut down all those tendrils, and sliced through the stalked seed that emerged when the shockwave of the flower crashing to the ground unfurled the petals protecting it. The thing thrashed, hopped around, and swiftly died with the connection to its mother plant severed.

An ash-brown _thing_ was disgorged from its stomach, and a ring of blue light (this she recognised!) appeared.

"Makar?" asked past-Link.

"Ooh! You saved me, swordsman!" said the thing.

"Link," said past-Link, with a friendly, disarming smile. The difference between that Link, and his still glowering present-self, was striking. She realised, with something like shame, that she had never, ever seen her Link smile that way. She hadn't realised that that face could make that expression.

"The Great Deku Tree sent me to rescue you," Link continued, unaware of his audience. Navi's head whipped to the Link who could see her, shocked. _The Great Deku Tree_? A horrible queasy feeling entered her stomach. This was not usual. At all. Maybe there was a reason that Link looked and acted so like the Link she knew. Perhaps they were equivalents, the same person in different worlds. If so—

 _Don't get ahead of yourself, Navi_ , she chided herself.

She went back to wondering what that thing wearing the leaf was. She got her answer when they entered the light.

There was a different Great Deku Tree here, one she didn't recognise. Something about giving Link "Farore's Pearl" after Makar had finished performing his song?

Past-Link nodded, and waited patiently, watching the ceremony with the same, slight awe that present-Link had displayed back at Hyrule Castle.

Wait. "Children of the forest?" Oh, no! Were these monsters _the kokiri_? And, the Great Deku Tree seemed to trust Link—

She bit her lip, and glanced his way. He wasn't watching her, this time. He was staring at the Great Deku Tree with his puzzle-solving expression.

With the ceremony complete, she watched the eight koroks (eight! Ten, _total_!) fly off across "The Great Sea" to plant these seeds. Link took a bright green sphere with an odd symbol on it from the Great Deku Tree, thanked the tree with a bow, and left down a series of waterfalls and cliffs.

Navi nearly fell out of the air in shock when she saw the water, how _much_ there was, stretching as far as the eyes could see. She quite forgot about Link—both Links, until that annoying red boat began to speak. Something about heading for Great Fish Isle to get the last pearl? Was that where that scene with Jabu-Jabu had taken place?

Navi took another pinch of the past, and pulled. She was too distracted to be rough.

They landed in the middle of a battle with a giant white insect.

***

It was the pinch after that that showed her Ganondorf, whom she didn't even recognise, mostly because she could only see his ornate robes. She learnt his name only much later.

The entire scene made little sense to her. Present-Link's wounds from his previous (subsequent) battle had gone. All of his attention was on the man in the ornate robe, as if the man could attack or harm him. Just another reason why it was pointless talking to Link.

But, a further pinch took her onto the same beach that Link had trudged along on the way to his Grandma. This was his home…island.

The huge birdman was talking about young girls being kidnapped across the Great Sea. How Aryll had been taken because she'd been mistaken for Tetra. Tetra begrudgingly let Link come with her aboard her ship to the Forsaken Fortress. Navi was growing more confused, but, just as if she knew what she were doing, she reached forward and took the tiniest pinch of the past.

***

Link stood at the top of some sort of watchtower, looking through a strange device up into the sky, as a girl about twelve years old in a blue dress with that same blonde hair in pigtails danced on her feet, shouting at him to _look up at the sky_.

Navi flew, and saw the way the pirate captain was clutched in the talons of the same monstrous bird that she'd just watched throw Link out over the sea (how had he survived?). A big grey ball hit it in the beak, and it dropped Tetra into the same forest where Link had retrieved the fairy to heal his "Grandma".

The girl in the blue dress begged Link to find something to defend himself with and go see if the girl was alright.

Link went into the house from the night that Link had retrieved Nayru's Pearl, the one with the old men. This time, he went to the lower level, and trained in "the way of the sword" from the old man. Orca.

Link bowed to the old man leaning on the spear from before, and the man handed him a sword and sword-belt. Link wrapped it over his shoulder and fastened the buckle, then slid the plain-looking sword into its sheath. He set off up the mountain, crossed the bridge when it was still intact, entered a forest full of sunlight and empty of monsters.

He fought off the two moblin-like monsters that monster birds dropped into the woods, and watched Tetra wake, wiggle herself free of the tree she'd landed in, and crash to the forest floor.

The burly jerk from before came, and the two left Link standing there. He followed them out of the forest, and _here_ Navi finally saw that _this_ was Aryll, the sister he'd gone to save, when she was kidnapped.

Link surprised her by doing a very stupid thing and racing off the cliff.

She forgot that it wasn't her Link. She turned to him with a raised eyebrow, trying to mimic his amused wryness. He was still glowering at her.

She remembered.

Then, back down the path, to the pirate ship (she guessed) moored off-shore. She'd caught back up. She knew his whole quest, now. It hadn't been very long.

She grabbed a handful of the past, and pulled.

***

In a series of pinches, she watched Link grow up (or down, rather). Him, and his sister, raised by their grandmother.

Link stopped by Orca and Sturgeon's house often, and spoke with both. He seemed to be quite the bright child, when he wasn't racing off cliffs. But he was Hylian, and not a Kokiri. It was a bit startling, though, to see him wearing, not the clothes of the kokiri, but some sort of garish orange and blue ensemble. She snickered at him, and he glared at her. She didn't ask whether that it was because she was laughing at him, or whether he was still angry from earlier, or whether it was because she was invading some rather personal memories.

He took to swords with ease, and devoured Sturgeon's advice about everything else. He taught himself to swim, and built up his endurance. He offered to teach Aryll, but she made a face. "The seagulls will save me," she said, scrunching up her nose.

Link laughed, smiling that same smile he'd given Makar in the lair of the killer plant. It changed to the wry amusement. Then, he shoved her off into the water, and waited.

She got caught up in the water that rushed in and out. She flailed her arms.

"Are your seagulls saving you?" he asked her.

Navi glanced over at his future self, doubled over from the pain this memory brought him. She thought there might be tears in his eyes. It was clear he cared about Aryll a lot, so _why_ —

He realised that she was not spontaneously learning to swim, as he had, and dove in after her in time to keep her from drowning.

The water couldn't be that cold—he'd been happy enough, earlier, which meant that the shivering and the paleness of him after was from shock. He seemed a bit horrified at his own actions. But, she saw him rally himself, and lead her gently back to the water.

"Oh, don't!" Aryll wailed. "I can't!"

"There's water all around us," he said, his voice sharp. "Maybe I won't be around next time you come too close to it. You must learn."

He sounded almost like….

Aryll shook and cried harder. She tried to yank her hand from his, but he had a tight grip.

Navi saw him close his eyes, and make a conscious effort to soothe her. "It's alright, Aryll. I swear I won't let anything happen to you. I just—I couldn't stand it if you drowned, when I could prevent it by teaching you to swim. The ocean is always dangerous, but—"

He pulled her into a hug against all her protestations and struggling. "It doesn't have to be today," he said. "But I couldn't lose you, too. I just couldn't!"

Ten-year-old boys didn't often cry, but this time, he could pass it off as the seawater still dripping down his hair.

Then, Grandma appeared, and she was _furious_. She went on for a very long time about how she had expected better of Link, and what kind of brother was he if he would do something like that to his own sister, what if she'd _died_?

There were moments of mulish resentment, but they were smothered under the knowledge that what she was saying was _true_. He _had_ endangered Aryll's life. He bore it, the way he bore the boat's lectures. The way he bore Navi's lectures. He listened to his grandmother quite intensely, and she could almost _hear_ him resolving to do better.

Navi wondered if Aryll had ever learnt to swim as she yanked on another patch of past.

***

They at last reached a point where any memories at all were painful—the mind was not meant to remember that far back, when you were that young. It was unnatural. Link looked quite pale and shook and she knew that he was barely aware of his surroundings, it hurt so badly. He couldn't even stand.

The sight was not as gratifying as she had thought it would be. He had made mistakes, but he was a good person. And then, too, the further back she went, the harder and colder he seemed to grow. That reminded her of the Link she knew.

When he was five, she heard the Island Legend. She listened with mounting horror to what had become of her beloved Hyrule (or rather, that no one even now knew its _name_ , although the Link currently doubled over, unseeing, over there somehow had), and—that mention. The Hero of Time! Was it _her_ Link? Or was it _now_? Either way, there went the theory of equivalents!

Past-Link listened, and frowned, and bit his tongue. She could see that he wanted to say something to Orca as he told his tale, and wondered what it was. There was the hardest, blankest set to his face, and his eyes seemed to shoot sparks.

"What became of the kingdom?" she dared to ask present-Link. He was in too much pain to think of denying her.

"The goddesses drowned it beneath the waves," he said. He returned no joy to her horror.

***

At three he glared indiscriminately at the world and was always reaching for things that weren't there.

Aryll was a small pinkish bundle wrapt in yellow cloth, hairless for the moment, that screamed all the time. Link was hardly any better.

"Not my mom," he told the man who died two years in the future irritably. The sentence was almost grammatically sound. "Not my dad. Don't have parents."

He crossed his arms and glared, as if daring the man to contradict him. Link pointed a very chubby finger over at the currently silent bundle.

"Not my sister."

"She _is_ your sister, and I am your father, and she's all that's left of your mother. How dare you!"

Navi thought it was probably not standard to yell at toddlers, but Link was hardly a standard toddler. He glared up in sustained defiance.

Present-Link's attention snapped around to the man, somehow, drinking in the sight of him. This was his dad, who they'd lost a couple of years later when he'd been rescuing a much younger and slimmer pig-woman from her burning house.

"Let me handle him, Tander," said a much younger version of Sturgeon's granddaughter. Link's dad nodded, and walked away, over to where Aryll was now crying.

"Hey there, Link. Things are tough right now for your dad. He didn't mean to shout at you, you know."

"Don't care," Link said. He was already trying to raise an eyebrow. "Not right. Nothing right. Don't understand."

"Good people don't cause unnecessary suffering. Do you know what that means? It means—"

"I know what it means!" Link snapped, losing his temper. "I'm not _stupid_ , you know. I'm not _really_ three."

Present-Link stared at his past self, somewhat alarmed, but unable to concentrate fully through the pain.

Sue-Belle humoured him. "How old are you, then, really?" She clearly was expecting an answer of impossible digits. Link just shrugged. He paused.

"Don't remember. Older than _you_." He smiled, and it was not a nice smile. It was somehow all sharp edges and teeth.

"Okay," Sue-Belle said, spreading her hands in a soothing sort of way. "What's 'unnecessary suffering' mean, then?"

He paused. "Means you don't hurt anyone—cause 'em pain—if you don't have to."

"Do you see how you caused…Tander pain?" Sue-Belle asked.

Link huffed. "No! Told him the truth! Hurt him worse if he learnt later. I only—nothing makes sense!"

Sue-Belle gave him a rather patronising smile, and he snapped at her.

"And, you don't believe me! Well, it's _true_."

Sue-Belle considered. "He was there when you were born. His wife is the one who bore you. That makes you his son in his eyes, and in the rest of the world's, no matter what you think."

He stared at her. "And, since Aryll's the same way, she's as much their child as you are. If you aren't, neither is she. Either way, you're siblings."

Three-year-old Link looked, with distinct unease, over at the baby. "Little sister?" he asked. Sue-Belle nodded.

"You'll hurt her if you keep rejecting her," Sue-Belle said. She was not bothering to tone down her words, at all, after Link had defined that previous phrase. "Good people wouldn't do that."

"I can't save the world if I have people holding me back," Link said, returning to complete sentences with the same abruptness as he'd departed from them.

Sue-Belle hid a little smile. Navi still saw it, watching enraptured as she was. "Oh! So you want to be a hero, do you?! Well, I'll tell you a secret!" She leant over towards him, and whispered loudly. "Heroes are stronger when they have people they care about!"

Toddler-Link considered this. Here came the puzzle-solving expression, although he couldn't move his fist to a good position to catch his chin.

"Doesn't matter," he said at last, in a final sort of way that gave Navi shivers. "Everything turns to ashes, in the end."

"Stuff grows back healthier after a fire," Sue-Belle countered. "You just have to be willing to build it again. It'll be better than before."

She watched him consider this, too, and come to a decision.

She followed him as he went over to Tander. "'S Aryll alright?" he asked, glancing up at her.

Tander seemed to have realised that something had changed, if only a little. "She's sleeping again," he said, with a little smile as he stared at her instead of at Link. Navi wondered if he realised it was Link who had spoken.

"Good. Look after her for you," Link offered. "Protect her. I know how."

Tander actually looked at him, then. He glanced over at Sue-Belle gratefully, and Link-of-the-past magnanimously overlooked it. "'S good to have a dad," Link tried. He gave a sort of strained smile that was trying very hard not to be alarming. "I'll try it."

The thing was, Navi knew he _had_. She tried to tell herself that she was still doing this to make him suffer, but his words were ringing in her ears, and she was cold and shaking. She had to know, and thus she grabbed a handful of past and pulled.

***

"That…was… _Dad_ ," Link interrupted the next scene to say. "Didn't…even…recognise…him! Was…so…young…when—but…why…would—?"

Navi shrugged. She was as lost as he was. She knew what he was asking. It occurred to her that the pain of recent events was making him talk like his three-year-old self. Instead of laughing at him over it, it made her wonder if the toddler Link had spoken that way because he was in some sort of pain.

Cold spread through her. What if she'd made a huge mistake?

"This is…me being born. You can't go back any further," he said, surprisingly reasonable despite the pain. She could see that he'd been working his way through it, finding some sort of inner strength to help him figure out how to push through despite it all. He braced himself against nothing at all and rose to his feet. His breathing was still laboured, but he no longer paused between every word. His face was dripping with sweat, his clothes soaked with it, and his expression almost blank. He was deathly white, like a ghost, but that blue glimmering about him hadn't returned after they'd left the entryway.

"We'll just see about that," Navi said. Instead of grabbing a handful of past, however, she flew forward. Even though he could barely move for the pain, Link followed.

***

She hadn't expected what she found. The wind howled in her ears and tried to fling her about. Perhaps this was the force that seemed to push against her, trying to drive her back, or perhaps not. It was hard to tell. She could see white fog billowing up amongst a vast empty whiteness. She wasn't sure how she was managing to tell that there even _was_ fog.

Perhaps it was Link, when she saw him. That blue shimmering was back around him. He was back to being a spirit.

He looked hellbent on something, his face was set and he was pushing against whatever tried to drive them back. He looked much as he had in the previous memories, except that now, he had the Master Sword slung in that sheath in that sword belt that Orca had given him, and a shield that she did not recall ever seeing him acquire. It was hard to tell if he were still in pain, or just slightly stooped to make it harder for the wind to blow him back.

She realised that she had stopped.

"Where is this?" he called. His voice was still rather strained. It was cold, but he was sweating.

"Damned if I know!" Navi called back. "This was _not_ what I was expecting!"

He twitched to look over at her, and they seemed to come to an understanding. There was some level of common cause, here.

Navi flapped with all her might to drift forward in a slow, wobbling line. Eventually, something loomed out of the mist. A lake, she thought. It was rather deep towards the centre, but Navi did not have to worry about that. She flew over it, and then waited. Link emerged on the far side much later, soaked and bedraggled and quite clearly in a great deal of pain. He gasped for air, as if it were hard to breathe.

Navi set off ahead, again, and he followed, without giving himself time to rest. There was more empty whiteness. It was hard going. She wasn't sure they hadn't gone the wrong way at some point. Her mind kept trying to tell her that she had. But, she knew that she was flying in a straight line.

She came to a stone wall at least twice as tall as Link. It was completely smooth, and blocked the way to either side, for the short space that she could see. She flew to the top, and perched on the wall. She risked turning around to watch.

Link came to the wall, and tried to leap up it. If he weren't in such pain, he might even have managed it. But it failed. He tried twice more, and then, with a look of grim determination, set to digging under it with the shield. It took quite a while to dig the hole, and then to try to crawl under. Thankfully, whilst rather long, at the very least, it was not very thick.

Navi flew on.

Next, they came to a wall of brambles and briars.

"Kalle Demos," she heard him mutter to himself, but he made a motion that she should stop, and began to cut the way through with the Master Sword. It was slow going, too. The brambles did not seem to like being cut. They seemed to home in on Link as they fell away. Before long, he was covered in scratches. Some of the brambles he had to push aside with his bare hands, the barrier was so thick.

She waited for him to call her, almost surprised that she did. She wondered why they seemed to be working as a team, now. Shrugged.

More whiteness, which slowly tinged yellow.

It did not surprise her overmuch to find a wall of flames barring her way, as the previous walls had, as far as could be seen. As before, she had every reason to think that they continued on forever.

The fire put out no smoke. There was no haze or distortion, nor even heat, as she flew high over the flames.

Link did not have this luxury. She saw him brace himself, and then shrug. The wind was still blowing something fierce (not that it affected the flames at all) still driving them both back. Link had to stagger slowly through the flames.

He emerged on the other side dry, but rather burnt. The burns were not as severe as they might have been, but Navi still felt that she should look away.

There was a period of more whiteness and silence, as they both bent their minds to their respective tasks, and then, there was what looked to be a solid wall of whiter whiteness rising before them.

Navi would dearly have loved to say that was impossible, but it must not be. She pressed her hand against it, but it was quite solid.

She hung her head, trying to think of anything she could do. Link, still looking like something the cat dragged in, came up beside her. He gave her a sceptical raised eyebrow, and made to lean against the wall. His hand began to pass through, slowly, as if through water. She flew as fast as she could to latch onto his sword belt as he waded through the wall. It was much thicker than the others. They seemed to trudge for years. But at least the screaming and battering of the wind had stopped. It was only the resistance of the wall itself driving them back.

They emerged into more whiteness. Navi could have cried. Then, she noticed that it wasn't all whiteness, and the belt she was clinging to had changed. She let go and looked around.

Blue sky with clouds overhead, and white underfoot. A girl with long hair the colour of lava, wearing a pink and white dress, and golden epaulets. And, she—she herself!—and a Link who looked much the same as the Link she'd been traveling with, but wearing gloves that gleamed golden.

Time was running forward, and driving them back. Navi had to push against it, again. She was back in memories. But, she'd expected this to be…well, a battle, or a death in bed. The Link who stood there, about to die? looked hale and strong, if a bit sad.

Time for that later. She had to move forwards.

She saw a figure behind her brace himself, and refuse to be driven backwards. He pushed against the past and memories so hard that they ground to a halt. She saw him set his feet, and reach his hands forward, as if actually pushing a physical object.

She looked back and forth between the two Links, and compared. Kokiri leathern gauntlets, instead of golden ones. No sword belt, sheath, or shield. That was it, as far as she could tell. That and a sort of determined strength against memory-Link's sorrow. Present-Link took a step forward. And another. Time rewound.

Only then did he look up and over at the scene.

"What?" he asked. "Who are they? How are we seeing this?"

Navi's stomach seemed to have dropped right out of her body. She found that she was crying. That the Link who stood there with the woman looked so like the Link she was traveling with suggested that her Link had somehow grown up to look that way long before this one had been born. Navi's own presence confirmed it. _That_ was her Link, speaking with the woman amidst the white.

Which meant that present-Link, who had just spoken, was _also_ her Link. What had she _done_?

She forgot to flap her wings, and began to fall. Somehow, despite being weakened by all the torment she'd just put him through, he managed to race over and catch her before she could hit the whiteness—or fall through, perhaps.

"I don't know for sure," she said, her heart pounding. "I think that's the Hero of Time, but the woman—could it be Princess Zelda?"

"Who?" he asked, and she winced. "Wait, that's the _Hero of Time_?"

He clearly still didn't know who he was. Navi tried her hardest to swallow her tears, and keep her voice level, but her breathing was as ragged as Link's. She was sure that he was still in agony, but he was hiding it, or perhaps didn't even remember, worrying about _her_ , little though she deserved it.

He stared down at the ground in a version of his puzzle-solving expression modified to allow her to stay safe in his hands.

"How do you not know what's going on and who they are? That's _you_ , isn't it? What do you remember happened?" he asked, at last.

Navi shook her head. She shook all over. She was still crying. He wasn't looking at her. He didn't notice.

"Yes, it must be. But, I have no memory of this happening. For me, it hasn't yet. Perhaps, it never will. It's hard to tell."

He looked back down at his hands, and stood. He took a step forward, bracing himself against time and memory trying to push him back. It was, in his usual way, at once alarming and impressive.

"Then, how are we seeing this?" he demanded, taking another step forward. "If you've never seen it—"

"It wouldn't matter either way if I had!" she cut in, trying her hardest to be angry lest guilt eat her from the inside out. "We're in _your_ soul, idiot!" She couldn't believe she had to remind him. "That means these are _your_ memories. Which means _he's you_!"

There. That should do it. He paused where he stood, and the memory began to play out. The woman thanked Link for saving Hyrule. She said that there would be peace… "for a time". She offered to send him back to relive the seven years she'd taken from him. All she needed was the Ocarina of Time.

The Hero of Time snapped his fingers, and a beautiful blue instrument—an ocarina, Link supposed—fell into his hands. He held it out to the girl, with a sorrow so keen that Link swore he could feel it, himself. She took it from him with equal reluctance and grief, told him that this was goodbye—that they would never meet again.

And, when she began to play, the world began to fade into the whiteness. That was why it had been so unusual, so hard to get through. He understood that, now. It was unnatural, created by the woman's spell. Whatever she'd done, it didn't seem to be quite what she'd intended, or Link would have wandered through seven years of growing up before arriving here. Instead, it cut off abruptly into that wall of white, as if someone had cut through time with a knife.

Lay the Master Sword to rest….

He hadn't been expecting the whiteness, to be thrown back into the wall. He forced his feet forward. And took another step. And another. He glanced down at his hands to make sure that mystery fairy was still there. She was very still and silent.

The Hero of Time, she'd said that was. _Him_ , she'd said that was.

"But, that can't be. We went _backwards_. I haven't even been _born_ yet!" he cried.

Navi stirred at his shouting. "That's the point," she said, trying for her calmest voice. "This is your past life—the life you had before you were born. I'd expected you to see your death in battle. Instead…."

She paused, gulped, and then found herself wailing. "I'm _sorry_ , Link! I'm so sorry! Let's get out of here, right now! Let's go back. All you have to do is turn back the way we came. If you keep going in that direction, we'll suddenly be at the stairs we came up! Let's just _go_."

She was utterly miserable. Now, she had to face the reality of what she'd done. She'd known it would hurt him, being forced to remember all these old things, and she'd pushed through anyway, because he didn't matter unless he were _her_ Link.

And then, it turned out that he _was_ , and she'd made a terrible mistake. She didn't know how to fix it.

"No," Link said. "I want to know who she is. I want to know how we came to be in this whiteness. Otherwise, it will happen again."

She saw that he'd hit on a moment of unshakeable stubbornness, where he went as mobile as a mountain. She'd tortured him, and the only thing he could think to do was to keep on bearing it until he understood what was going on.

"It'll hurt," she warned him. He grimaced, shrugged, and then winced. She took to the air long enough to land on his shoulder. She was still shaking.

"Why're you crying?" he asked, as if that even needed explanation.

"Because you're my _charge_ , and my _friend_ , and I _hurt_ you," she screamed. It was not quite in his ear.

"You're only sorry 'cause I turned out to be _him_ ," Link said, in a casual, indifferent sort of way that she knew well. _Oh, you want me to enter a cavern full of man-eating giant dragons? Okay. Oh, you want me to enter the innards of a giant fish? Okay. Oh, you want me to gather three rocks so you can open a door? Okay._

He spread out his hands, to either side, and magic flowed up from the whiteness they were walking on. It was whatever the equivalent of magic power was, deep within the soul.

"Well, _yes_ ," Navi said. " _You're_ my charge. I couldn't let a fake take your place. And…and before all this, you were sort of my first friend."

He paused to look down at her. Greenness swarmed around him, until he glittered green, as he had blue in the passage outside.

"Then…thank you. I don't even know your name, but I can tell you care a lot. This proves it. I suppose I should be flattered. To go this far, just to protect me…."

She was almost entirely certain that no one else in the universe would see things that way. They'd say that she was a monster for torturing him, instead.

"I'm going to make the most of this. We're going to learn _everything_ that lies ahead, and then we'll know how to deal with it when it comes."

"My name's Navi," she said, taking a shaky breath. "The Great Deku Tree asked me to be your partner from now on. Pleased to meet you. Let's get going!"

And they did.


	3. OoT/WW 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Link and Navi catch up to where they currently are in Link's memories. And then some.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally , this was supposed to be the last chapter in memory-land. I underestimated its length, and _then_ Zelda hijacked a scene in what is now the next chapter. So....

Link had remembered how it felt—to bear the weight of pain that was the manifestation of all his negative weighty emotions—guilt, sorrow, fear, pain, anger—and dredged up something from the floor of his soul. This was uncharted territory, and he'd never quite synchronised with his past selves.

He was more than a bit curious as to how the Hero of Time felt about all this. He could catch _glimmers_ of emotions, but they were distant. But, if he were in his soul, then these were _his_ emotions, and, if he so chose, he could line them up with him, himself.

So, he did.

( _Not bodyswapping after all, then_ , he noted to himself, somewhere. Mostly, though, he had to reassure Navi. She was in a very bad way.)

Naturally, he managed to accomplish what he'd set out to do (it didn't do anything when he was walking forward—that would be too confusing) just to find that he'd wandered into the middle of a battle. This one was tough. He had no memory of feeling this poorly before.

The Hero of Time had taken quite the beating—worse even than fighting Kalle Demos. The tingle of electricity remained in his bloodstream, but it was joined by quite a few other sorts of injuries—he'd been burnt by something, and, judging by the tingling of the medicine of life in his shoulder, his shield arm had been broken, crushed by something from above—a great weight. Link could see that the Hero of Time's clothes were torn, in several places, and there was a sealing gash in his stomach (when had he had a chance to take some medicine? that should be fatal there). Navi of then fluttered near the head of a giant pigman.

"Now! The Master Sword! Hurry and defeat Ganon with the Sacred Sword!" screamed the woman from later.

Past-Link nodded, and approached the giant pig-thing, which must be Ganon.

 _Ganon_! How could it be? He'd looked human, on the Forsaken Fortress. Link glanced down at a still unresponsive Navi.

Present-Link blinked over at her. Past-Link wrenched his hand in a series of mechanical swipes of the Master Sword, ending with embedding it to the hilt in Ganon's head (this was not as messy as Link had expected).

"Seven Sages! Now!" the woman cried, throwing her arms over her head. _Seven_ Sages?

Link blinked and almost missed the sphere of colourful light that engulfed Ganon, reducing him back to an almost-familiar, human, form. Oh.

Ganon seemed to shrink as he floated away within the sphere of rainbow light. He seemed to be going sideways through an invisible doorway leading into the distance. He shouted threats of violent retribution upon his return.

So, the woman was that "Zelda" Navi had mentioned earlier? She had been so devastated to send him back in time seven years. They must be very good friends. He wished that he remembered her.

But, if Ganon were trying to "exterminate their descendants", then why was he kidnapping girls from all over the Great Sea? It made no sense. That had to be one of the most important things for them to learn.

He had no idea what was going on. He resumed his slow march forward, and relaxed as the pain went away. It hurt to move forwards, of course, but not as bad as that pain, with everything the Hero of Time had been through layered on top.

As he went, he observed, watching the battle play out in reverse. Navi was still shaking. She seemed to be in the middle of some sort of breakdown. He thought to call her out of it, glancing down at her.

"If he's trying to kill all our descendants, then why'd he go around the Great Sea kidnapping girls?" His focus was no longer on what was around him. He was thinking too hard, and trying to figure out what was wrong with Navi.

But, he did not dare to stop. He was vaguely aware of a ring of fire around him. That must be how he'd been burnt?

"I've heard tell…that the heir to the throne of Hyrule is always a girl—a princess. It may only be a rumour, but if I have heard it, Ganondorf also will have."

Ganon _dorf_. Oh, he'd never remember that! It was too like what he already called the man.

"But…wait…. Ganondorf…kidnapping girls?" Navi's voice was so faint that Link had to lift her over towards his ear to hear her. It was a whisper, softer than a breeze. "He—"

Link saw where she didn't understand.

"He was the one on top of the Forsaken Fortress," he said. It was mostly an accident that he interrupted. "The one who had that giant bird—the Helmaroc King—throw me into the ocean."

He was so matter of fact about this that Navi started crying again. "Oh, Link! I'm so sorry! And how did you survive? A fall from such a height—"

"It-it wasn't _that_ big of a fall, I don't think. Looked worse than it was."

He'd lost consciousness, and couldn't remember. Some god, somewhere, must have been looking out for him. Or, perhaps, a secret ability of the King of Red Lions.

"Anyway, I've hit a lot of brick walls and been fine. Well, two. When I went to the Forsaken Fortress, Tetra shot me out of a cannon. Her aim was a bit off. And then, when I went to the Tower of the Gods to open the way to Hyrule, an explosion caused by some statues…I'm not sure how that works, actually, come to think of it—knocked me into the Tower as it was rising from the sea. I don't think we saw either of those."

He shrugged. Navi seemed horrified. Well, she must have been the one to teach him to work past his own injuries. It was vital to questing.

"What I want to know, is how he thinks to find Zelda. I hadn't heard _anything_ about a Zelda, or a royal family, until I came…here," he removed one of the hands supporting Navi, to point upwards, up the stairs, towards the outside world. That was another question. "Maybe they all died out."

Navi persisted in being horrified. "Oh, don't _say_ such things! It's bad enough to lose Hyrule, but the royal family—!" Navi's voice was a bit stronger, despite her misery. He faked a look of wry amusement, because he thought that might make her angry. Her voice— _she_ —seemed to be strongest then. He had the sense that that was not the first time that he'd done that.

It half-worked. Navi had a moment of indignation. "But, what do _you_ care?!" For a moment, she forgot that she knew that he wasn't an impostor. Then, she remembered, and curled back up into herself. "I don't know how he thought to find her. Maybe, if we keep watching…." The mere suggestion made her insides twitch with guilt. He was taking everything in stride, and she knew how much pain he must be in—her fault.

"Navi, we've been in here days," he said. "How do you know the monsters in the Woods haven't got us?"

He meant "captured". He was fairly sure he'd know if he'd died. They'd caught him, once, in the Forsaken Fortress, and had the decency to throw him in an actual jail cell instead of over the wall, or onto a spear.

"It hasn't been that long. Time runs differently inside a person's soul. There's so much seeming! But, it's where dreams take place. Haven't you ever had a dream that went on for days?"

The people of Outset liked to joke that he spent all his time sleeping. He hadn't had a good, full-night's sleep since Aryll had been kidnapped. He had to think back.

"I suppose," he said.

Navi flapped her wings, fluttering in the air. She seemed to have recovered, somewhat.

"Look, Link!" she called out. "Up in the sky!"

He took a step forward, because he was halfway through one, and turned to look in the direction Navi pointed.

The Hero of Time and Zelda stood on a promontory of sorts, jutting out of an otherwise circular area, all of it raised high above a pool of bubbling lava, when there was a crash from the centre of the circle. Zelda clutched at her heart, as if to convince it to stop racing. The Hero of Time threw out an arm to stop her.

"I'll see what that is," he said. He was exhausted and sore already, full of crackling lightning, and covered in recent burns. His shoulder had probably broken. He glanced back at her, and then snapped his fingers for a bottle still half-full of the medicine of life. Whatever this was, he didn't want to go in as worn out and battered as he was. It could be a threat.

It tasted horrible, but it did its work. It was not as good as if he'd had a full bottle, but he sensed he'd have more need of the ultimate medicine, soon.

As he walked into the rubble-strewn heart of the area, a ring of fire sprang up around him. A figure burst into the air.

" _That_!" said present-Navi.

The Ganondorf Link had just watched be sealed away by the Seven Sages shot out of the rubble, floating in the sky, and held up his palm, back out, palm in, as a yellow triangle gleamed on it. He began to transform.

"What—?"

He landed as a giant pig-thing. Navi of then fluttered into past-Link's face.

"Here, Link," Navi said. "I think—I can help a bit. This time, I won't let him separate us! I'll lend you my strength. Let's do this!"

Present-Navi stared. There was something there, between the Hero of Time, and her other self. The sort of strong bond formed in adversity and war. She knew what this "past" version of herself was offering. She knew that she was offering to _die_ for her Link. She never thought she'd see the day. What had happened to her? Had she gone soft? But, perhaps she already _had_.

Did _he_ know? She didn't think that he did. He seemed to be aware of the depth of their bond, but not of what she was offering.

"Oh, Link. What's _happened_ to me? Why would I offer something like that?" she asked present-Link. He turned to her, confused.

"What—I don't understand. What did you just do?"

"We must be really close," she said. "I don't understand, though. Fairies are inherently selfish creatures. We care about ourselves, and our homes. I want to save Hyrule because _I_ live here. Or, I _thought_ that that was why. But then, I _did_ just offer you my life."

Present-Link pushed forward just enough to effectively halt what was going on. He kept his focus on her. He'd felt the strength of this bond his past-self seemed to have with Navi. He knew, at least, how much he cared about her. He didn't know how it was possible. But he knew from when he first felt it what his three-year-old self had been looking all over and reaching out for: Navi. Something had happened, when they'd entered that whiteness. It had separated them.

"Fairies aren't supposed to care about other people. Not this much," Navi said. As Link's fairy partner, he was her charge. The Great Deku Tree had told her to look out for Link—that that was the way to save the world. And she'd been detached enough, before. But, to see where it all ended—almost, she could understand how the small friendship she had with Link now might have become this, what she saw before her. She didn't want it, but—

Perhaps it was not about what _she_ wanted. She knew that her future alternate self's choice was the right one. But it was one that shouldn't have occurred to her.

She could see that they both seemed to care about each other a lot, and figured out what Link had earlier—that it was _her_ that he had been looking for, when he'd been too young to understand what had happened when the whiteness had cut him out. As far as that little boy had known, he'd lost Navi when he'd suddenly become a baby.

And she understood a couple of other things, besides. Why Link had troubled himself to catch her when she fell, despite how much pain he was in, himself; despite what she had done to him.

And it explained that crushing look of betrayal on his face when he'd learnt what she was doing. Navi burst into a fresh flood of tears, but at least she was too far away for Link to see or hear her.

What she wanted was to make things up to him. What she wanted was for him to smile more—as he had on the Great Sea, a smile that was neither threat nor amused condescension, or scepticism, or wryness.

Past-Link nodded, and drew the Master Sword, but it was not enough against the gleaming golden blades of Ganon. It took three hits before Ganon caught it at the proper angle, but he wrenched it out of Link's hands, and there Link stood, defenceless. A wall of flames separated him from the Master Sword. He heard Zelda gasp, as it landed somewhere he couldn't see. But, he had to focus mostly on avoiding Ganon's blows now he had no way of defending himself.

But apparently not no way of attacking. Present-Link was more than a bit perplexed when the Hero of Time snapped his fingers, and a bow fell into them. A glow slowly gathered around the arrow, making it seem to shine. Link'd seen several of those arrows over the course of the battle. He wasn't sure what they were, however. He'd never seen anything similar. It made even less sense in reverse, however, to be fair.

Well, he thought that he'd seen enough of that. The strength of Ganon's blows was more than enough additional pain, without seeing precisely how he'd got his front sliced open. He took a step forward, and then another, and then another.

  
***

  
As they (he, Zelda, and Navi) seemed to climb the tower they'd earlier (later) watched collapse into that rubble of the arena, he took note of the origins of his injuries—not to avoid them, per se, but more to know when any particular threat had passed. When he was moving forward, he found that the injuries didn't hurt—but he wasn't always aware of acquiring them (or their disappearance), either.

Hit by a flaming boulder going down the final flight of steps. He'd caught it with the shield in time to avoid being crushed and burnt, but he'd twisted his arm in his haste, and that shoulder was not meant to bear such a weight. Or something. It was how he'd broken his shoulder.

But not how he'd received those burns. _That_ was in a room with two stalfos surrounding an empty treasure chest in the middle of the room.

Now, he had to figure out where that persistent electricity came from.

Along the way, he never quite dared to stop to watch (as his past-self had) in awe as Zelda raised her hands over her head, and violet light raised the bars of what served as secondary entrances to these interior tower rooms. Convenient that there were outside ramps around the sides of the tower, when they couldn't make their way to the doors.

At last, they came to the top, a roof without any walls around it, and Ganondorf flat on the ground, collapsed. Well, Link knew that he wasn't dead. Zelda said something shortly before the ground started to rumble, and Link wondered what it was, whether or not it was the cause of the Tower's collapse. A spell?

He stayed still for a moment. He became aware of the crackle of electricity through his veins, much stronger now, and focused on his left shoulder. It had to be that one, didn't it.

"Pitiful man. Without a righteous heart, he could not hope to control the power of the gods, and—"

The rumbling started. Whether or not her words actually had anything to do with the tower beginning to collapse was up for debate. Zelda looked around, and realised what was happening. Ganondorf was using what seemed to be (but was not) the last of the power to crush them under the rubble of his tower. They had to hurry to escape.

He'd somehow survived the fall and being buried under all that rubble. He was far from defeated.

Link took another step forward, and then another, as he realised that he was in the middle of _another_ battle. He walked and watched.

He saw that the origin of the electricity seemed to be impact with a ball of black light that Ganon launched from his hands. Link'd tried to repel the attack with the Master Sword, but they were too fast, and too small. And too many. There was a large orb of black energy, that split up into quite a few smaller ones that flew in erratic paths.

Link had to wonder why Ganon didn't stick with that attack. Then again, if Link'd been hit with that once, he'd have dodged if he ever saw it again, and blocked it with the shield.

Wait a second. He _had_ been hit. That was _him_. Memories and lives that he didn't know he'd lived through was an idea so insane that it was easier to forget about it.

If this were his soul (and Navi had said that it was) then the way to ground himself more thoroughly was to pull in the substance of what was around him. Souls were full of their own specific sort of energy, a sort of fluid, gooey unstuff that he'd used to create a sort of connection between him and his past-self. He pulled on more of it, now, as if it would help him to convince himself that this was real.

He watched the battle play back, until Ganondorf sank to the ground (leapt into the sky) for the last (first) time, as an opulent room faded in (out).

"No wonder she felt that she had to make things up to you! She stayed completely out of your duel with Ganondorf…. And you—you got _hurt_!" present-Navi cried. She'd been unusually quiet. Link followed her gaze to the corner of the room where Navi sat with her knees drawn up to her chin, watching the battle, unable to help.

"Well, I don't think it would be something you'd deliberately do, just from my own experience. Those…"poes". I don't think I could have dealt with them on my own. I mean, they're…the opposite of fairies, right? And you didn't run away then. I don't know much, but I do know that if you stayed out of this fight, there was a reason for it."

"I'm supposed to look after you," Navi muttered miserably. "See what I've done instead! Even my other-self has really ruined it!"

Link had said what he could. He didn't think he'd put it as well as it could be put, but he'd put it as well as he could put it. Maybe it would have been better if he'd said nothing at all.

He could think of nothing else to do. He kept walking, thinking the matter over and not paying any real attention to what was happening in reverse, until he found his past-self pulling a key out of a lock. They were at the top of a staircase. The difference in surroundings sort of jolted him back out of his thoughts, and he paused automatically.

"I think I saw something important—in there. That answered our earlier question," Navi cut in to say. She seemed to have decided that the best way to handle her feelings of inadequacy was to return to that cool professional tone she'd used on him at the top of the stairs leading into his soul (two weeks ago, or whatever). "How Ganondorf thought he might find the Princess, even without —without a royal family, on the Great Sea."

Link turned to her, again. She was flying bent over in the air, but her head was raised to look at the scene before them. Past-Link had walked into that opulent room (of course), and was looking around. Ganon was playing music on the far side of the room, but both times of Link were drawn to the light reflecting off a rupee-shaped pink prison above his head, where Zelda seemed to be awake, if entrapped in a solid, glassy structure.

Ganondorf said something about something called a "Triforce", that its pieces were "resonating", which meant that it was trying to become whole again. This meant nothing to present-Link, except for the alarm of all four of the others—Zelda, both Navis and his own past self. Unsurprisingly, whatever Ganon was trying to do was not a good thing.

"The _Triforce_?!" Navi of now cried.

Zelda held up her hand to her face, and Link of then stared down at his own hand, as a mark rose up through the golden glove, itself gleaming a brighter gold. Three triangles arranged in a triangle. Two were only outlines, but the third was filled in solid gold.

"Where did you get the _Triforce of Courage_?" Navi asked. "And, if Ganondorf has the Triforce of Power like Rauru said…."

When had Rauru said _that_?

It clicked, after a moment. It hadn't meant anything to Link then (and meant only slightly more _now_ ), but when he'd first shown up here, in this time, and had been trying to get his bearings, still thinking he was on the Great Sea, Rauru had said something about Ganondorf obtaining the Triforce of Power. " _Though you opened the door in the name of peace…_ ". Ganondorf had obtained the Triforce of Power went he entered the Sacred Realm after Link had drawn the Master Sword (in this time). In the seven intermittent years, he'd used its power to conquer Hyrule….

"Wait! Those yellow triangles— _that's_ the Triforce?" he asked, pushing against the past just enough to make everything halt. He'd have just how much pressure was needed memorised before this was through. He knew it.

By now, he could work through the pain that came with delving so unnaturally far into his past, and, almost without having to think about it, also push against the past just enough to stall his memories whilst also having some room in his mind to think back to later, on the Great Sea, shortly before he'd gone back in time—the "emblem of the herald" outside the entrance to the castle, and the three he'd dragged into that same shape, that opened the passage guarded by a statue of…a boy with the Master Sword, pointing towards the heavens.

Him. But not _that_ him. _This_ him.

Navi spun around to stare at him, wide-eyed. "You don't _know_?"

He raised an eyebrow, and laughed at the absurdity of this all, before he settled back into something of a disbelieving smile.

"Oh, don't _give_ me that look!" Navi snapped. "The Triforce is that 'golden power' mentioned in your island legend—the one that 'with its power at his command, he spread darkness across the kingdom'! Why, that's already _happened_ during the seven years we were gone! Link, the Triforce—the _complete_ Triforce—has the power to grant _wishes_. Any wish your heart might desire! _Anything_. And the seal—the one that broke—"

Link sobered. "I know."

"How _can_ it have?" Navi asked, sounding rather desperate. "It had the power of Sages we haven't even heard _rumour_ of!"

Link shrugged. He didn't know.

The Triforce. An artefact so important that even though its name and function had been forgotten over time, still the doors of Outset were decorated with its shape, albeit upside-down and dormant, and the legend told of its power, no matter how the enormity of that same had been lost.

And he had had a piece of it. At some point in his past—and Navi's future—he'd acquired the Triforce of Courage.

"It's how he thinks to identify Zelda amongst all of the other girls," Navi breathed. "The resonance of the Triforce of Wisdom! Did you see how it reacted when you entered the room?"

He raised an eyebrow at her with an otherwise flat expression. He wasn't sure how you _missed_ that.

"Which means that your past self—before you came here, at any rate, must have had the Triforce of Courage, too. It must be how your survived, after—after—And then it's how you got dragged back into the quest to defeat Ganondorf."

Link privately disagreed with her, but kept silent. He knew, by now, that if he argued with her, she'd just get more and more worked up about it, and he couldn't put his finger on what about it seemed wrong.

He stopped pushing against the past.

"Those two pieces of the Triforce that I failed to acquire seven years ago…" Ganondorf turned around with a dramatic flair of his cape. "I never expected they'd be hidden within you two!"

Navi changed her mind about when he'd acquired the Triforce of Courage. He must already have it…but did he _still_ have it?

"I order you to return them to me!" he cried, and waves of a darkness so absolute it killed the light of the room all around it flowed in a constant stream from Ganondorf's hand. It cut into Navi like a knife. She could tell how much that hurt. Its oppressive weight seemed to be weighing down Navi's wings.

Link of then turned to the Navi of the past with alarm. He had been about to give a sarcastic laugh, with no small amount of amusement at the thought that Ganondorf seemed to believe that he and Zelda would hand over their pieces willingly, without even a fight, just because he ordered it.

But, Navi's treatment made him angry. He glared over at where Zelda still was held prisoner, but swept his gaze right back to Navi.

"I'm sorry, Link! The power of darkness is too strong! Because of the waves of darkness I can't get close. You're on your own…."

She sounded quite as wretched as her present self had the past few hours. Present-Link shot Present-Navi a reproachful look. See? Not shirking your duties, after all!

That purple darkness spread out and saturated the room. It was weakest in the corner, so that was where Navi fled.

The golden gauntlets crackled as Link clenched his fists, and whirled back to glare at Ganondorf. Link of the present knew that that must be the look that seemed to scare everyone away from him. It did not seem quite human. Then again, he had been raised in the Kokiri Forest, and Navi the fairy was his guide and most constant companion. He was sure that, between these two things, he was bound to have turned out a bit… _fey_ , himself.

It was still a bit odd, to be able to watch himself from the outside. It was a familiar expression to make, but he hadn't seen it on the Hero of Time's face before. There'd been exhaustion and pain—perhaps he'd been too worn out.

Or perhaps, Present-Link hadn't noticed. He shook his head, as the room with Zelda in it seemed to fade away. Instant teleportation, perhaps?

He took a step forward, and then another. He watched himself seem to walk backwards down the stairs, and recognised all those rooms they'd had to hurry through as the tower collapsed, later. The empty chest of the room with the stalfos contained a shining golden key with a ruby set into it.

"The boss key," Navi said unnecessarily. He suspected that she wasn't paying attention to what she was saying, thinking about something else. Like, say, herself curled up in that corner platform as Link fought what would seem to her to be the biggest threat he'd ever face—all alone.

He took a risk, and, thinking of what he'd seen Navi do earlier, and all that pushing he'd done against memory, he grabbed a piece of his own memory-soul-time, and dragged on it.

  
***

  
He drew so slowly, treating it as if it were one of those infuriating pull levers with the slack and the timers, that he could note, in the speeding images that raced by, when and where he'd acquired the golden gauntlets, as well as that there was a Great Fairy's Fountain hidden behind a towering pillar decorated with a crescent moon and a star.

Also, that Great Fairies in this time were more than slightly creepy. If fairies were selfish creatures, then he supposed that it made sense that these had helped him to defeat a threat to the world that they shared. But he didn't get the same feel from them as he had the fairies on the Great Sea. He thought the fairies of his own time might have _learnt_ how not to be selfish.

Or perhaps they recognised him as having some connection with the Hero of Time, and therefore with one of their own. Navi. What had become of her when they'd entered that whiteness?

That dragging pinch brought him to the outside of the Temple of Time. He recognised it, and knew that he was about to run in. Zelda had been in the muddle of swirling events of that pinch, and so had Sheik.

He let go, and watched as time ran forward.

He looked around the Temple of Time as if he were expecting someone. Navi of then seemed to be waiting for the same someone, too.

"I've been expecting you, Hero of Time," Sheik said, suddenly in the doorway behind them.

What she said next seemed to tally with what he knew of this quest he was currently on. She told him that since he'd awakened the Six Sages, it was now time for his confrontation with Ganondorf.

"But before that, there are things that I want to tell only to you," Sheik said.

Then, she took Navi's dire warnings of what might happen if Ganondorf acquired the Triforce, and added another layer of Bad on top. If Ganondorf acquired the full Triforce, he'd acquire "The True Force" to rule all. It must have been what had made Hyrule great—in possession of the king, the king would have the wisdom, power, and courage to make the best decisions for his kingdom, and a failsafe if that didn't work. But in Ganondorf's hands….

"The one who holds the Triforce of Courage is… _you_ , Link!"

This was not a surprise to either Link, nor, apparently, either Navi. They must have figured it out at some point during the quest, but it meant that Link had probably already had it even when he'd awoken in the Sacred Realm.

Which should mean that it was hidden under the plain brown gauntlets he was wearing right now. How could he have it and not _know_ it? Wasn't it an artefact of unfathomable power?

He had enough freedom of thought to think back to Hyrule Castle, and picture those events in his mind's eye. For relative definitions of the word, those were recent memories. He did not have enough concentration, however, to try to chase down the Triforce of Courage, if indeed he had it, and if indeed he would even be able to find it, way down here in his memories as he was. For all he knew, he'd just connect to the resonance of it in the memory before him.

"And the one who bears the Triforce of Wisdom…is the Seventh Sage, destined to be the leader of them all."

Oh. _Seventh Sage_. Well, so his past self hadn't known about it until just now, eith—

Sheik held up her hand as he was thinking, and the mark of the Triforce glowed on the back. Which meant that she was actually Zelda, disguising herself as some invented alias named Sheik. That name now sounded terribly uninspired. Or rather, even more uninspired than it had. He was fairly sure that no fairy would every name their child "fairy", nor any hylian name their child "Hylia".

A flash of bright white light, as the Triforce of Wisdom drowned everything in whiteness.

Huh.

When the light cleared away, Zelda stood in Sheik's place. Link of the present had had plenty of time to get used to how Zelda looked (to the extent that you could get used to perfection). But this was the first time that the Hero of Time had seen her. He _gawked_.

If Navi had not been so miserable and kicking herself for her failures as Link's guardian, she might have laughed at this response. Past-Navi seemed to have to stuff her whole fist into her mouth.

"It is I, Zelda, Princess of Hyrule," Zelda said, smiling at Link. It seemed to be a happy reunion in the making, but Link knew that at some point, Ganon had taken her prisoner (as he was trying again on the Great Sea?).

She laid out a risky plan, and then taught him how to use the "arrows of light". Those were the arrows he'd used in his battles against Ganondorf and his later pig form. He wondered if he could make them, now, or on the Great Sea.

He was just starting to get distracted by these thoughts when the ground began to shake, and dust and small pieces of masonry began to fall from the ceiling.

"Oh, no! It can't be!" Zelda cried, looking around the room.

The pink rupee prison of before closed in around her. Present-Link stared with a sort of muted anger. He knew how the relevant rest of it went. But Past-Link did not. He banged on the walls of the prison and scoured it for weaknesses. Even before Zelda's prison rose to the ceiling, and out of his reach, he was already settling into that death glare that terrified people.

Present-Link had no great need to see all this again. He grabbed a pinch of the past, and drew it back towards him (and pulled himself and Navi into it in the process).

***

They stood outside a giant stone statue rising up out of an area filled with sand. So much sand, as far as he could see! Even on the Great Sea, there was not enough land for sand to cover such a huge area. He stared, wide-eyed, at all that sand. There were cliffs and little reefy mesas, here and there, but for the most part it was just a vast expanse of sand, except for that table formation behind him and the huge statue before him.

He thought he understood Navi's reaction to the Great Sea more now. Never had he imagined that such a vast area could be nothing but sand and rock. Wait! There were a few trees! Or were they a mirage from the heat, and the sun beating down on him?

"'If you wish to enter the right-hand door, return here with the **Power of Silver from the past** ,'" he said to Navi, with a grin that was neither that same, alarming look that scared even adults, nor sarcastic disbelief. It was a heartfelt grin.

He seemed to be quoting something.

"Oh, Link, this is horrible! What could they have done to Nabooru? She seemed so pleased to hear that we hated Ganondorf as much as she does!" Navi of then wailed.

Link of then paused to consider it. "Didn't one of the carpenters say something about witches conducting experiments on brainwashing here?"

His good mood soured. He entered the Temple, blocked the pots that threw themselves at him with an apathy that suggested habit, and went up the stairs, turning to a blocked off passage to the right. A huge grey block there.

"Power of silver from the past," Link said again. "Well, let's test it."

He was wearing those silvery gauntlets that he'd been wearing before the golden ones. They caught the light and glittered as he shoved the block down the passage and into a hole.

That was only the beginning. He never went down the left-hand passage, but he _did_ later find a sort of lift that would bring him back to the entrance.

The Temple (Past-Link knew that that must be what this was) was full of traps and monsters. Stalfos like those he'd fought in Ganon's Tower, floating mummy things, and lizards—Navi of now hissed names and strategies at him as he stared at them. Occasionally, she'd say the same thing as Navi of then, at the same time. Link was amused by this. Navi just shrugged.

"If it was good enough then, it's good enough now. Or—"

This seemed to confuse her. She poked the side of her cheek.

Some of the enemies were invisible, unless Link held up a strange lens. Through the glass, he could see them, but without it, they seemed invisible. It clung around his eye with an alarming silence, and it drained magic. Present-Link frowned at that.

Once, he saw the Hero of Time, perhaps fed up with all these wallmasters and anubis, murmur something under his breath, and a hemisphere of fire expanded outwards around him.

"Din's Fire," Navi supplied happily when he turned to her, almost automatically, an alarming thought, to see if she just _might_ know what that was. "You learnt that on top of Death Mountain when we went there for the Spiritual Stone of Fire."

Something that had already happened. Link remembered his earlier speculation that either the Hero of Time had already been to Death Mountain, or he himself would have to go, and sighed. It seemed he'd already been. Navi would know about it, but—

Nothing was stopping him from going as far back as he dared, and learning everything he could about the life of the Hero of Time.

There was a certain surrealism about it—the knowledge that it was _his own privacy_ that he was prying into, combined with a sort of lingering hero-worship that he'd been raised on, and couldn't quite shake. It was an opportunity, but it hurt and something seemed to bite in deep into his soul and latch on.

The "Mirror Shield" was something that Link had acquired, used only here in the Spirit Temple, and then returned to whatever shield it was he'd used before. The silver gauntlets, he kept. Present-Link was not sure that he understood why. Did he think that Ganondorf would recognise it as an artefact of his own people? Did it contain hidden dangers?

Couldn't he have blocked those black orbs of darkness that Ganondorf had hit him with during their duel? The Mirror Shield would have swallowed them, and then spat them out in a stream of light. He was sure of it. But he thought of these things with whatever part of his mind wasn't occupied with pushing through pain, or hating Twinrova, who after all was responsible for Ganon.

The Sage of Spirit was the aforementioned "Nabooru" who thankfully bore him no malice after he'd dragged her through the dirt and beat the hell out of her just before the fight against Twinrova.

Okay, then. Link grabbed a pinch of the past, and pulled.

***

There was a lot both he and Navi could learn from what was Link's past, and Navi's future. They could learn about bosses and traps and enemies.

Link had to pause to stare at Bongo Bongo for a moment. He'd arrived in the middle of the boss battle, and had walked forwards to the beginning. A pool of acid surrounded the platform he fought from (which was an enormous drum). He wore a pair of boots that allowed him to float above the ground for a few seconds, long enough to aim the bow and shoot, when the drum sent him into the air.

It was a familiar battle, he reflected. There weren't any gouts of fire from the invisible mouth, and you needed that weird lens to see anything of the boss at all, and there was the drum and that ring of acid around the arena.

Other than that, it was just like fighting Gohdan. "I knew it reminded me of something!" he said, rather pleased to have figured this out. "Gohdan!"

"Gohdan?" Navi echoed, taking her eyes off the fight.

"He was the guardian of the Tower of the Gods," Link said. "I had to defeat him to prove myself worthy of going to Hyrule to draw the Master Sword. I had to gather those three Pearls just to _enter_ the Tower, and then they flung me into the wall…."

Navi had, somehow, forgotten that. That was the "trial" mentioned, what felt forever ago. Then, he'd already gone through it!

Link, however, was thinking of something else.

"There were voices, that spoke at the top of the tower. Three women, I think. They called me the 'Chosen One'."

It had made no sense at the time, but made a little, now, knowing even just what he'd learnt.

He was the hero. He was The Hero.

"The Goddesses," Navi said, trying to sound prim and indifferent.

It was hard to be indifferent when Link would insist upon letting the battle play out as it had, no matter how it hurt to be dunked into acid and squeezed to death by a giant fist. Apparently, he'd forgotten that it mattered whether or not he lived or died, or perhaps that it mattered if he _suffered_. Pain was something to be avoided, in Navi's opinion.

She'd have to keep a better eye on him.

At the end, that ring of blue light led a staggering, beaten up Link back to the Sacred Realm. The Sage of Shadow was Impa. Navi thought that that shouldn't have surprised her as much as it had.

***

Navi flew backwards and ordered Link to let go of the past that he'd gathered. She pointed at the woman standing on top of the ring representing the water medallion.

" _That's_ Ruto," she said, with a sneer. Link had to cast back quite a ways, it seemed, to find where he was supposed to know that name from.

"Oh. The one you said was a good reason to leave the Water Temple for last?"

"I suppose we were desperate," Navi said with feeling. "We couldn't know where either of the last temples were."

"What do you have against her? I mean, she's one of the Seven Sages, right?" Link was a bit lost.

"Oh, watch and you'll see," Navi said darkly, hands on her hips, as he glared Ruto down. "She's always _flirting_ with you by insulting you—-"

He raised an eyebrow, and gave her an amused look. "What, jealous?"

Navi went so red that even her halo turned pink. "No!" she shouted. "She's—she's just—"

To be fair, after a few seconds, Link found Ruto quite as insufferable.

"I mean to say, she gave you an engagement ring, and now she insists that you'll have to get married! But that engagement ring was 'Zora's Sapphire', one of the three Spiritual Stones that we needed to open the Door of Time to get to the Master Sword! What else were we to do?" Navi found her voice to cry.

Link was a bit uneasy at this. "I can't have known at the time—"

" _Exactly_ ," Navi said.

"That can't be legal?" he tried. He knew what marriage was—if nothing else, he'd helped get Linda and Anton together on Windfall—with some help from the pictographer, Lenzo.

"She's a princess," Navi countered. She sounded glum, but Link's face lit up.

"So's _Zelda_! She can fix this…if I can convince her not to try to send me back in time…."

This warranted further thought.

***

Dark Link was perhaps, in its own way, the single most terrifying thing Link had ever seen. Link was not sure that it could be planned for. The Hero of Time had barely even survived, even with healing potions and magic spells.

"Let's go through the Water Temple next," he said. "I'm not looking forward to that duel."

He found that he was shaking. If he hadn't been walking time back, the added pain of the sound beating he'd taken from Dark Link might have killed him. His soul-self, anyway.

Navi opened her mouth, and then closed it again at the look on his face. Not that long ago, she would have scolded him for complaining, or not trying hard enough.

But Navi of then hovered between the two of them, frantic. There was little that she could do against a foe such as this, and she knew it. Already she cared enough that Navi of now could detect the desperation in the way that she fluttered back and forth, trying to find something, _anything_ that she could do to help.

***

The Sage of Fire was Darunia. This was unsurprising, given the trend Navi had started to notice. Link seemed to be drawn to important people.

He took a break after the Fire Temple, to go to Lon Lon Ranch, and free Epona. When they returned the next day with Talon, Ingo was groveling, saying how honoured he was to work here.

There was a twitchy sort of urge to head straight to Kakariko Village, and then back to the ranch, when they'd got out of here.

***

The Forest Temple. Easy to forget that it was just around the corner. It loomed near. They hadn't arrived there, yet.

The Great Deku Tree _Sprout_ emerged from the soil, and Link leant forwards unthinking, and knelt down, pushing absently against the past to hold time in place while he stared at this tiny little bulb that had shot out of the earth (and knocked him flat on his back) that must grow up to be that towering Tree that guarded the koroks and Farore's Pearl.

So what if he were a hylian? He sort of was used to that. It was more of news that Hero of Time Link had thought that he was a kokiri.

Link saw the way he reacted to the Forest Sage—how devastated he was when she didn't seem to know him, and then how it smoothed out, when he realised that she did.

 _But you remember **Saria** , right?_ Navi had asked, right before they'd entered his soul. He saw for himself how unthinkable it was that he might forget her.

He walked forwards, into the pitched battle between him and a figure that looked uncomfortably like Ganondorf and floated in the air like him, too.

"Ganondorf's Phantom," Navi of now whispered to him. "I knew that that spell existed, but I didn't think he would—"

As before, when the Hero of Time had fought Ganondorf later, they sent a ball of white light back and forth. Cut through between shoulder and arm, and it reattached even as the Master Sword left. A blow to the heart was a waster of time when the wound immediately began to draw closed—and the creature seemed to suffer little more than a bit of pain. Stick to slices, and try every vital area, just to be sure.

And again. And again.

Now, Phantom Ganon was riding a horse out of a painting. Link took aim with a bow that he must have acquired in the Forest Temple, because Link did remember calling for one back on the road. He'd called for the bow. Then the grappling hook. And covered up what he was doing by calling the map.

A single shot unseated Ganondorf, but he could fly on his own power. Link thought that he was getting better at telling all the details of time, the past as it unfurled in reverse. He still had to pause, occasionally.

At length, he stood alone in the middle of the ring of paintings. He backtracked down, and out through the boss door. He pulled the Big Key out of the lock, and went back through the hall into an odd room with giant levers sticking out from around the wall. A few minutes of pushing on them to rotate the room around to reveal doors and switches and skulltulas, and then up the lift into what seemed to be a central chamber of the Temple.

A fight against a miniboss— "That's Meg! She's one of the four Poe Sisters. Only one of those four rotating images is right. You have to figure out which!" Navi of now interrupted his thoughts to shout.

Because they were at the end of the battle, it was clear that Past-Link already knew this.

There were a lot of disturbing things about the Forest Temple besides, Link discovered as he continued to push forwards. They encountered each of the three Poe Sisters, whom Navi labeled for him, one by one. But, really. Those twisting corridors—how did they work?

And there were wallmasters, and stalfos, and something called a wolfos…. He noted to himself that the door on the far side of the room from the entrance to the main hall was the one with the stalfos guarding the bow. That was important to know.

Then, they were back out in open air. Sheik appeared. Link did not anticipate being in too much pain to pay attention to this. She was going to teach him a song, as she already had five other ones. This one was called the "Minuet of Forest". He knew because, as he always did, he stopped walking time back just before Sheik would appear.

He was in a bit of pain. He appeared to have been bowled over by something carrying a pointy weapon. It was not the worst he'd experienced since going past the white wall.

They did seem to have an odd friendship. Link had protected her from what must have been Bongo Bongo when it had emerged from the well. And now, he had all these memories that she didn't, of things she hadn't had a chance to do yet. There was a sort of a sense of loss, of paths that could never be taken, now. But there were more important things.

He had to find some way to keep her from being kidnapped by Ganondorf. Then, they could go and confront him, together.

That, too, was a plan best left for later.

She did not tell him to return to speak with her at the Temple of Time, but he knew that he had, before he'd gone (back) to Goron City. Some part of him must have assumed that she stayed in the Temple of Time when she wasn't following him around.

Not that he'd realised that she was a girl yet. He felt kind of clueless. He didn't think he'd figured it out on the entire course of the quest until that shocking reveal in the Temple of Time.

The reason that he'd known that she was a woman this time, when Navi hadn't figured it out, was that he remembered, if deep down.

What did it say, and about whom, that he remembered that little detail of Zelda's, when he'd forgotten everyone else entirely?

***

The maze that Navi called "the path to the Sacred Forest Meadow" was crawling with giant piggy things. She said that they were called "moblins". Link had met moblins before. He supposed that that was the evolution of a monster over time.

Well, now he knew what had jabbed him and bowled him over into the water. Living on the Great Sea meant that he barely registered being soaking wet.

Link continued to watch in fascination as his past-self and Navi backtracked. It was the near future, the distant past, what would have been had he not somehow been sent back in time. He watched the turns his past-self took, never seeming to have to hesitate for a second, and thought that he could not remember that ever.

He had, once, he reminded himself.

He was a bit concerned with how dejected the Hero of Time looked, gaze fixed downwards, taking the turns without thinking, though never erring. Something was eating at him.

Somehow, despite it being identical to everywhere else, Link knew when they came to the clearing they were in now. And when the Hero of Time did not even pause where they stood, there was something odd indeed about the sensation it left him.

Now, he would for a time (not very long) be following the what-would-have-been of events he'd already experienced. He'd _seen_ some, but it was different, watching himself backtrack through the woods, the way he gave Mido a bewildered stare, as if Mido should have recognised him, and he was _almost_ hurt not to be known. "Saria's Song" came easily to him.

Link said something to something Navi said. A glance at the archway they'd passed in the clearing before that. Link paused at the entrance to this clearing.

"Not yet, Link," Navi said coldly, her voice a bit less professionally stern than it might have been otherwise. "Don't you want to save Saria?"

"Of course," the Hero of Time said, eyes wide, face drawn and pale with misery. He _sounded_ , for once, injured. Who knew what he was thinking?

It hurt. Something did hurt. But it wasn't anything physical—Link recognised that weighty feeling that came of bad memories.

"No one knows me—none of my friends." He seemed lost. He sounded a bit like a lost child.

Navi said nothing. It wouldn't have been professional.

Navi of now furrowed her brows, but understood. If she hadn't spent the past weeks watching Link's life play out in reverse, she would have been detached, too. She _knew_ it. Link being replaced with her future self had forced her to admit to herself that she had more than a professional interest in his well-being, but this other-self didn't have that. There was still such a gulf between them, and she was only making Link harsher and bitterer by not reassuring him, now.

But she didn't reassure him. And they went on their way. She knew that he survived, but—

Was he ever _happy_ in this life? He'd had no chance after Ganondorf's defeat. He'd gone from that world in the sky to being a baby on the Great Sea.

Something hurt in Navi's chest, although it had no right or reason to.

***

In the Temple of Time, events played out in a familiar way. Link stood aside, stoic, and listened to Sheik's instruction with a familiar accepting wryness. It was not the same expression that he'd used this time, when he'd been trained to listen and to obey, but his words and gestures were like enough to pass them off as interchangeable. You wouldn't have known that he'd just arrived at the Sacred Realm to find that seven years had passed, and he'd grown up.

Link stopped walking when the light of the Sacred Realm set them down back in the Temple of Time. He watched himself descend those steps, just as he had before. He paid attention to how he and Sheik interacted. There was something different about it that he couldn't quite put his finger on. He supposed that it was because, a few days ago, he'd already known Sheik's secret. This past-self had no notion.

It was the same conversation. Sheik spoke the same words. Link noted that he himself used the same words. But the intonation was different. Less respectful. He sort of felt ashamed. This was a princess!

Wait. What _was_ a princess, anyway?

He no longer was quite clear on what he did and didn't know. Apparently, he acted on some things that he knew without even being aware that he knew anything at all.

That was really a headache.

He walked back to the beginning of Rauru's speech. He was curious about this one, but he needn't have been. It was very familiar, and slightly repetitive. It finished with Rauru handing over the Light Medallion, and the blue light of the Sacred Realm picking him up.

"We're leaving now, right?" Navi said. But she was not the only one to have learnt more about her companion on this trip. Link understood her better, too. He'd watched her in so many scenes…in some ways, he thought he understood her mind, at least a little. She was desperate to leave. He had to wonder why.

He cocked his head to the side, and grinned at her. There was perhaps more malice than he intended in that grin. "When we've come this far? Not on your life."

And he cheerfully stepped forwards, into the time before his arrival.


End file.
